Al-Nour Party

The al-Nour Party is an Islamist political party in Egypt that was founded on 12 May 2011. The party was an ultra-conservative Salafist party, becoming the most prominent of the newer Salafist parties in the country due to its organizational and administrative experience and its charismatic leadership. The party's goal was to establish a theocratic state similar to Saudi Arabia, and the Saudis became the main financiers of the party. From January 2013, the party gradually distanced itself from Mohamed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood-backed Freedom and Justice Party government and supported Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's July 2013 military coup against Morsi. The party was therefore allowed to exist under the military regime, despite its calls for the implementation of extreme sharia law.